Off the cloud and into my hands
by Anatomy Melancholia
Summary: There's been an accident at the Quidditch pitch; Potter is frighteningly small when he's not moving. Lily isn't surprised Remus got there first - James is one of his best friends - but she'd have bet seven hells to heaven that Potter was faking. MWPP-era


Potter is frighteningly small when he's not moving. Lily isn't surprised Remus got there first; James is one of his best friends and Remus is a prefect, but she'd have bet seven hells to heaven that Potter was faking. He's made that dive a hundred times, usually cackling and screaming something just on the right side of obscene from his broomstick.

Without his glasses, Potter looks surprisingly fragile: bony wrists and long nose, thin and skinny. Black is leaning over him, shaking his shoulder and Remus is pulling him away shouting, "Don't touch him." They're like dogs hovering over a bone and ripping each other apart.

Lily staggers slightly then realises that it's not the earth spinning, Madam Pomfrey has rushed past. Black and Remus separate like guilty lovers to make room for the nurse. She is mixing metaphors and thinking stupid things. Potter's best friends naturally rushed out to the pitch. She's not sure why she follows but it's bad news when the Head Boy ends up braining himself on the school turf.

The roar of the crowd is sucked back into her head and suddenly her temples are pounding with the weight of the noise. Dumbledore has not moved but McGonagall is striding towards them and Lily _knows_ that Potter is not faking, but if he is then he is deader than a hippogriff's mouse lunch.

Madam Pomfrey is feeling around Potter's neck and skull. He can't have broken his neck, his head is too inflated. Nice, soft, cushy landing then.

"I'm telling you it's dark magic!" someone is half-yelling.

Black. Obviously.

"James would _never_ miss that dive. He's done it a billion times."

Right. He has, actually. She's asked him that once, sarcastically and he'd replied quietly that it took practice. Potter practices like a madman before every match. And he spends those mornings throwing up in Myrtle's lav so nobody on the team knows. He lets this slip on a different occasion when prefect complaints lie scattered around them, thick and heavy as drooping eyelids.

She's afraid of balloons popping. Bad clown experience, she told him.

There are _whumps!_ all around here as players land and Madam Hooch hurries over. Lily belatedly realises the whistle blew not three seconds ago. Oh. They were still playing.

Black's too bright to keep his tirade going with the entire mass of Hufflepuff and Gryffindor surrounding him though Lily can almost hear him thinking his hate towards the green and silver in the stands.

"Black," she says sharply, "it was an accident."

Grey eyes meet hers and the hate transfers some of its attention.

Professor McGonagall replies before Black does, "Thank you for your assessment, Miss Evans."

Madam Pomfrey is standing up now, talking so quietly Lily can't hear her but she sees Remus go white so it can't be good.

Potter is still alive though. Lily stares a little harder just to make sure she can see the vague rise and fall of his chest. He looks...tired.

The stands are buzzing behind her and she can hear the Gryffindors break into a rousing chant. It's to be expected really, Gryffindor would break into a rousing chant in the face of an execution order. Slytherin is diplomatically quiet though the laughter and light voices indicate they are ignoring the situation. Lily feels the first burst of worry - Slytherin should be mocking Potter's skills.

Lily looks around and the broom is a few feet behind Potter's body. It's half-buried in the earth and shredded from the force of the impact. The shock of grief is sudden and astonishing. Grief over Potter's _broom_? But Lily looks at it and her throat squeezes tighter - it's pathetic and it shouldn't be. It is ignominious in death with its cracked twigs and splintered frame.

Potter is thin and grey as he is levitated by McGonagall and Pomfrey together, and they set off at a quick trot.

Remus follows and Black follows. Pettigrew - why hadn't she noticed Pettigrew? - scuttles back like a half-demented crab. Lily watches his fat hand patting away at the grass. He straightens a few moments later holding what remains of Potter's glasses. Then he scuttles away to the funereal procession leaving the field.

Lily is left staring at the broomstick for which she desperately wants to cry.

Play resumes, thankfully.


End file.
